Truth, Love,...and Puppies

note: I (the owner of this blog and maker of wheels) am not into warrior cats! I just thought this would be fun to make

Annabell, a solid white and completely deaf pit bull that used to let mom draw on her belly

The World’s Ugliest Tom Cat, who turned out to be the cuddiest teddy bear of an animal

Cocker spaniel named “Captain”

Stupid, the Cat

Litter of baby raccoons

Three more cats

A completely bald and extremely anxious canary that sang beautifully, but only at 4 AM

Baby Squirrel that grew up in the house and then refused to move out

A Genuine Thoroughbred Racehorse who was a spectacular athelete but had a habit of running races in the wrong direction.  Benny turned out to be a terrific trail horse instead.

Turtle

Snapping Turtle

A bucket full of 43 goldfish left over from the fair.  Mom counted once they were all in the bathtub in the backyard with the snapping turtle.

Another cocker spaniel named “Major”, who had the tremendous talent of eating green beans silently

Red-tailed hawk he found on the highway, and sucessfully nursed back to health and released.

Dummy, Son of Stupid

Strange, the dog that lived under the porch and only came into the house at night.

An “abandoned” baby deer.

Spooky, an alleged dog.  

Joey the parakeet whose tricks were  1. drinking tea out of a tiny cup 2. threatening to peck out people’s eyes 3. wearing hats

A Really Big Toad he found behind the factory, because the other auto workers were discussing using it for target practice.  Mr. Grumpity was guardian of the rosebed for several years and granny’s (his mother) favorite animal he ever brought home.

Gretchen, a St. Bernard that had to be shaved from her prior owner’s neglect, and spent a week hiding from sight with such success in the house that they thought she’d run away.

Arson, Burglary and Murder, three frankly adorable little kittens.  They did not change the names, much to the regret of the cop who lived three doors down.

Yet another Cocker Spaniel, named “Colonel”

Cardinal (bird)

Canada Goose (Demon)

Once in the nursing home, he had a “pet” 12-point whitetail buck that would come to his window to be fed corn and get headskritches, inexplicably named “Florence”

Your grandparents were Druids, right? They were a Steel Worker and Head Clerk at the local grocery store, respectively. 

How does a Horse run races the Wrong way? Get near the finish line then make a U-turn becuase he wasn’t done running yet.  He was also an excellent jumper and swimming horse. Much happier being a trail horse on Cleveland’s Emerald Belt.

How does a St. Bernard hide in a small suburban house? Clever use of the space behind the couches, under the sink and under beds.  For a 110lb animal, Gretchen was also very quiet and knew to wait until the house was empty to move from hiding spaces or to snitch food off the counters.  Once her coat grew back in she was willing to be visible again.

The Tarantula Didn’t come froma  pet store, did it? You know that stereotype about Tarantuals hiding in Bananas? That used to be a real thing that happened when bananas started being regularly available in Postwar mass market grocery stores.  Not very often, but it did. Grandma found the tarantula in a shipment of Bananas, and being the only non-arachnophobe working in the store, took her home and named her “Carmen Tarantula” after the famous brazilian singer. Geography was not Grandma’s strong point

Carmen Tarantula lived for 3 years and juding by the extremely blurry polaroid in the family albums, was probably a Brazilian Black.

What do you mean Spooky was an “Alleged Dog”? Well, for one thing, she Meowed.

Spooky was a 35lb delicate-limbed dog with owl-like pale green eyes and bat-like ears that was solid black save for a white patch on her chest in exactly the shape of Casper The friendly ghost, which was the only part of her visible when she would roam the halls at night, which is how she got the name.

Spooky was living in the house at the same time as Dummy, Son Of Stupid and another more Prototypical cat named Needles.  Dummy would sometimes forget what he was doing and get lost in the house, causing him to mewl pathetically until one of the humans or animals found and escorted him back to more familiar settings.  Typically, Needles would meow back at Dummy until she found him.

After three weeks in the house, Spooky could do an astonishingly good Cat’s Meow as well.

Spooky could also open doorknobs, get into the attic which didn’t even have a human entrance, would sit up like a human to eat her dinner or watch TV, and had a peculiar penchant for fishing.  Grandpa and Uncle popeye would regularly take her on fishing trips becuase she’d gleefully dive into the lakes and finish bringing the catch in, whether it were lake trout or pike or in one case, a strugeon.

Spooky also LOVED tomatoes.  More than anything else in the world.  If given a choice between a ribeye and a tomato, Spooky would chose the tomato every time.  This only applied to raw tomatoes though, she despised ketchup.

So while very much shaped like one, Spooky gave the distinct impression of something else dressed up as a dog.  Whatever she was, she was a loving and beloved companion to the family for 16 years.

And if you’ve got a buck to spare, drop it in that tip jar.

Some More animals from my mother’s childhood home:

Nickel and Dime, the bait fish that lived in a teapot

Susan, the rat snake

Susan 2 or “Twosan”, also a rat snake but may have also been the same rat snake but bigger.

The cats Smoke and Fire, so named because: 1. They were gray and orange, respectively 2. Fire was blind and navigated the house by following Smoke around, so literally, wherever there was Smoke, there’s Fire.

A Goldfinch that moved into the Canary’s cage after he passed away and it was put outside one day during housecleaning

A flying squirrel

After my Grandparents moved to a nursing home, Grandpa had a “pet deer” that was a wild whitetail buck who would come up to the window of their room for carrots and head skritches, despire everyone telling Grandpa NO!!

The Woodcock That Lived Under The Oak Tree. several attempts were made to name it but the next time it came up in conversation, everyone forgot what they had agreed to call it, so it became The Woodcock That Lives Under The Oak Tree.

Romaine, a frog they found in a head of lettuce

A Cow, briefly

Apparently Strange The Dog had puppies at some point and they managed to find homes for Weird, Odd, and Bizarre, but they decided to keep Queer, which was a real funny animal to stand in the street calling in for dinner.

At least 17 Bullfrogs, all named “Dog”

Skittles the Pony who had a penchant for swimming in the local lake and biting pieces out anyone who wasn’t paying enough attention.

Honorable Mention:

The first Dog my mom got was “Cops” a beautiful 120lb purebred German Shepherd who had flunked out of the police K9 academy.

Cops HAD been doing very well at Bite Training, except that being A Creature of Profound Intellect and Sound Philosophy, Cops had assumed that the purpose of biting was to get the guy who was shouting and behaving aggressively to stop. So the first time he was told to Chase Down A Fleeing Suspect (the guy in the bite suit, sprinting away) Cops correctly decided that the man screaming at him to bite someone who was actively leaving the confrontation must be the aggressor, and promptly bit his handler in the dick.

Being that he was entirely too morally upstanding for police work, Cops was surrendered to the local animal shelter as my mother arrived to adopt a dog.

She expressed an interest, was told why he washed out and “He’s got a mean streak a mile wide- A little lady like you wouldn’t be able to control him.”

My mother, 4'11 and the former Ohio State Weight Lifting Champion, looked down at this gentle soul and promptly scooped him up into her arms on his back like an infant, where he was thrilled to remain, tail wagging, for the rest of the adoption process.

Cops was my mother’s loyal guardian, and largely aloof to politely hostile to nearly every man my mother brought home, which tended to end romantic relationships. Until one night when she brought a former ESL teacher turned computer programmer she’d been seeing home for a drink and when she came back from the kitchen with the bottle of wine, Cops had climbed into the man’s lap on the couch and rolled on his back while the man goo-goo’d over him like an infant.

“That’s when I knew it was serious.” She told me, much later. “I hadn’t made up my mind about marriage at that point, but I knew I wanted children, and that I wanted him to be your father.”

—

This is my great grandmother with Spooky the alleged Dog and Dummy, son of Stupid.

This is also my great grandmother (mother of the man who kept bringing animals home) and one of her “pet birds” because she would just have wild birds from outdoors decide they wanted to be her friend and just. Land on her hands when she whistled for them.

-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)

-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt

-ayran: yogurt, water, salt, mint

-sees the reports of the heatwave in Europe-

As of this morning I was reluctantly looking for jobs because I love my job and don't want to leave it, but see: $10k raise problem solver.

As of noon today this was no longer an issue, because my boss called me with the news that I was getting a $10K merit raise.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is roughly $200 extra per paycheck. Enough to pay off debt faster, rebuild my savings, and spend a weekend a month in Milwaukee getting obscenely laid. The sex I'm going to have on $200 extra per paycheck. You can't even.

"Oh I don't normally use AI, I just wanted it to plan my trip"

You lived on this planet for decades, you know what you like, there are hundreds of websites where you can type into any search engine " things to do in [area]" and have at least a hundred different options.

"Oh I only use it so I can figure out what to make during the week with what I have"

The most popular website as you type in "recipes" into google have sections where you click dinner- quick and easy and those usually rely on staples + 1 or 2 items. I found 30 recipes on chicken alone.

"I had a writing idea, so I typed a few sentences into Chat GPT and I was able to write 20 pages with it."

Safety, ethics, and sustainability are all a part of urban gardening and foraging. I'm sorry that means you need to do homework before you can do anything, I know that sounds lame. But life is complicated.

Daily reminder: Leafy greens like kales uptake all those delicious heavy metals in urban soils like lead and cadmium.

Don’t eat sidewalk-crack kale.

Here's some cool references from the EPA on safe urban gardening:

REUSING POTENTIALLY CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPES: Growing Gardens in Urban Soils